She deserves what she’s getting, he told himself. It’s only right that it comes at my hand. This will all be over soon. He took heart that once the job was finished, he could forget about Anne-Marie Calderone forever.
Never in a million years would Cade have expected Anne-Marie to be standing on his doorstep, on the ranch in Montana. “A long way from New Orleans,” he said, rubbing his chin and eyeing her from across the room. He’d offered her a seat in the living room that didn’t get used much and was still filled with memorabilia and furniture from the days over a decade earlier when his mother had still been alive.
“I know. Cade, I’m sorry about your brother.”
She appeared sincere, but he didn’t trust his instincts around her. They’d always been off a bit. She’d come to his home in a disguise, and he couldn’t read her eyes as they’d been darkened with contact lenses. She was still wearing some kind of padding. Her body didn’t fit her head now that she’d removed whatever it was that had changed the contour of her cheeks and the look of her teeth. That she’d shown up out of the blue with no word for years, her beauty intently played down, wasn’t a good sign.
“I doubt you came all the way up here to give me your condolences.”
“No,” she admitted, clearly nervous. She glanced away for a second, and he wondered if she was concocting her story, trying to think of a way to make it plausible. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“You said it was life or death.”
“I think so, yes.” Though she was nodding as she balanced on the edge of the dusty couch, she didn’t seem so sure of herself. It was as if she were suddenly second-guessing her arrival on his doorstep.
He decided that was just desserts. He owed her nothing.
“Look, Cade,” she said, one hand nervously plucking at a bit of fabric on the couch. “Years ago, you said if I was ever in trouble . . . you know, with the law, that I could count on your brother, that . . . he would help.”
“You came up here to talk with Dan?”
“Yes,” she admitted weakly, “and then, well, I heard that he’d passed.”
“Killed,” Cade corrected. “He was murdered in cold blood. A bastard he knew and trusted laid in wait and pulled the goddamn trigger. That’s what happened.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you said.” He closed his eyes for a second and tried like hell to tamp down the rage that overtook him every time he thought of his brother’s death. That the son of a bitch who’d taken Dan’s life was still alive pissed him off. Forcing his eyes open, he stared at her and asked, “What is it?”
“I think,” she started as if unsure of herself, “he’s followed me here. I think he might be behind the attacks on the other women who were killed. I don’t know, but . . .” She let out her breath slowly.
“Who?” he asked, but he felt it, that chill of premonition that warned him that bad news was coming his way.
“My husband,” she whispered softly. “I think he followed me here.”
Chapter 17
“Your husband?” Cade repeated, his expression guarded, suspicion visible in his eyes as Shad settled into a dog bed near the fireplace.
Too late, Jessica realized she’d made a big mistake in going there, in hoping he might be able to help her. But she was in too deep to backtrack. “I’ve been hiding from him.”
“Here? In Grizzly Falls?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m dressed like this.” She made a sweeping gesture to include her whole body. “When I drove here, I didn’t know about Dan, about what had happened to him. I was just desperate. You’d said once that if I were ever in serious trouble that your brother was someone I could trust, a fair officer of the law. And I thought, hoped, that I could explain to him what happened and . . . and that he would believe me and trust me and help me.”
“You think your husband is out to kill you?” Cade ask
ed dubiously.
“I know he is,” she said, shivering inwardly. “He tried once, thought he’d gotten rid of me, but I managed to survive. And now he has to make sure.”
He regarded her suspiciously. “You have family.”
“Who have disowned me.”
“And why is that?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. They both knew why. “Look, Cade, even if I contacted them and told them my story, they wouldn’t believe me. Because . . . because . . .”